Poco F7 Pro review

6.67-inch OLED with plenty of pixels

Poco has fitted what looks like the same display we saw on the F6 Pro last year and it just might be the same display you'd get on the F7 Ultra. It's a 6.67-inch OLED panel with QHD resolution and a pixel density of 526ppi (almost sounds like too much for the class).

The rest of the numbers add up to a pretty compelling package. The maximum refresh rate is 120Hz, there's up 3,840Hz PWM dimming, and the display is capable of showing 68B colors (12-bit color depth). Dolby Vision support is also on the menu, among all the other HDR standards.

In our testing, the F7 Pro was good for just under 1,500nits in auto brightness mode, with the manual result being a little under 800nits (585nits if you disable the sunlight boost). All three numbers were just marginally below those we got out of the F7 Ultra, but an improvement over the F6 Pro, and an excellent showing overall.

Refresh rate

The F7 Pro's refresh rate settings are just like on every other Xiaomi. You can just leave it in the 'Default' (full auto) mode, or you can opt for one of two Custom modes (120Hz and 60Hz ceilings). Since it's not an LTPO panel, there's not a whole lot of adaptiveness to the behavior either way - in Default and Custom 120Hz modes you can expect it to switch down to 60Hz when idling to preserve battery, but that's about it. We never saw a 90Hz mode in action and we didn't get anything below 60Hz.

The 120Hz mode's key advantage over Default mode is that it allows you to set per-app refresh rate values. You can, hence, try to force some apps and games to use high refresh rates or alternatively limit others at 60Hz to save power. Our usual selection of games did run trouble-free above the 60fps mark as reported by the HypreOS gaming utility, whether in Default or in Custom 120Hz mode.

Streaming and HDR

The F7 Pro supports Dolby Vision, in addition to HDR10+ and HDR10. We got HDR streams on YouTube, as well as on Netflix, where the app reported HDR10 and Dolby Vision compliance. The Widevine L1 certification ensures high-res video playback of DRM-protected content.

The Poco F7 Pro also adheres to the Android Ultra HDR standard for displaying compliant metadata-enhanced images in Google Photos, Chrome, and the in-house gallery - you'll get the characteristic local highlight boost.

Poco F7 Pro battery life

The Poco F7 Pro uses a 6,000mAh battery - a welcome upgrade over the F6 Pro's 5,000mAh capacity and in keeping with the times. It's quite a lot more than the F7 Ultra's 5,300mAh power pack too.

That said, we didn't get a whole lot longer battery life out of the Pro than we did out of the Ultra - other than the voice call time, the numbers are essentially the same. With nearly 17 hours of video playback or 14 hours of web browsing, the Poco is looking solid. The 7 hours of gaming are also not too bad. With everything dialed into our formula, the Active Use Score of the Poco F7 Pro works out to just under 14h.

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Charging speed

The F7 Pro supports charging up to 90W when using compatible Xiaomi adapters or third-party USB PowerDelivery chargers (if the stars and/or PPS power profiles align). Our review unit arrived with a 90W adapter in the box, but if you're in the EU, you'll probably need to come up with your own charging solution.

Using that 90W charger, you should be getting a flat-to-full time of 37 minutes, according to the promo materials, but in our experience, that was closer to 34 minutes.

The F7 Ultra charges a little faster and the F6 Pro is a bit quicker still, but the F7 Pro's results are very good nonetheless, given the larger capacity and the lower maximum power (though that last bit doesn't necessarily mean much). What you'll get with an aftermarket adapter is anyone's guess.

The Poco F7 Pro does not support wireless charging, which isn't a massive surprise - if it wasn't for its Ultra stablemate, there would be just one Poco with that capability.

The F7 Pro does feature the usual Hyper OS provisions for extending the lifespan of the battery. You can limit the fast charging, you can enable Smart charging (the phone charges up to 80% and then waits for the final top-off just before you typically use it, based on your usage patterns), or you can just set a hard cap on things at 80% in all situations by enabling the Battery protection toggle.

Speaker test

The F7 Pro uses a stereo speaker setup where its earpiece joins the bottom-firing main speaker to form a pair of channels. While the F7 Ultra maintains strict channel separation, the Pro adopts the more common (for a Xiaomi) approach of having each speaker play the opposite channel's track at a lower level - it's moderately strange that there's such a discrepancy between the two models, though we have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Bottom speaker • Top speaker/Earpiece

In our testing, the Poco F7 Pro's loudness placed it in the 'Very Good' category, same as the Ultra and most competitors. We're quite liking the phone's output - it's got good response across the whole frequency range and no real flaws to speak of.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.